


The Mouser

by samariumwriting



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Implied/Referenced Animal Death, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 19:24:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18394799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: "Ike, we need a cat.""Why do we need a cat, Mist?"-The Greil Mercenaries 'recruit' a 'professional pest catcher'.





	The Mouser

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the FE Compendium Challenge 62 - I know their challenges are meant to be based on drawings, but I'm useless at art and also doing Camp NaNoWriMo so I did this instead.

“Ike, we need a cat.” Ike had spent the morning in Soren’s workspace as Soren took him through their budget for the week, any information they had on people who might need jobs done, things that were going on around Tellius...basically, everything he needed to know for the week.

“Why do we need a cat, Mist?” he asked, looking at her with a slightly amused look. She probably wanted a cat because they were cute, and, well, everyone loved animals. A cat would probably be nice to have if they weren’t soldiers for hire. And if they had any money.

“Because this is an old, insecure fort,” she said. “There are mice everywhere, and they keep getting into our food. If we got a cat, it could be a mouser, and it’d be nice to have one around anyway.”

“We can put traps up,” Soren suggested. “A cat would run off unless we spoil it. But if we spoil it, it won’t need to catch mice. A cat for catching mice would probably be entirely useless.”

“You’re a spoilsport, Soren,” Mist said, pouting at him. Soren’s face didn’t change. “Pleeease consider it, Ike?” she asked.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. He didn’t think having a cat would be a bad idea, exactly. He just didn’t know how much of a good idea it was. And, honestly, money was going to be a problem at some point. Soren had suggested asking some of the band to look for temporary work as field hands come the harvest, and Soren himself had been working for people in organising accounts, so long as they could afford his prices.

Either way, money was tight, and would probably continue to be tight for a long time, if not for the rest of the group’s existence. Ike had never paid attention to those kinds of issues before, but he got the impression that the company under his father had been held together by respect rather than financial benefit.

“You’re going to get a cat, aren’t you,” Soren said, as soon as Mist had left the room. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement.

“Yeah,” Ike admitted. “I’m probably going to get a cat. Can we...afford to do that?”

Soren sighed. “Honestly? Probably. For a short while, at least. We’re not the most financially stable of soldiers for hire, but...we can afford a cat. As long as it actually goes out and eats mice.”

“Great,” Ike said, a grin on his face immediately. “Yes, I’m going to get a cat.”

“Joy,” Soren said, and though anyone else would call such words from Soren bitterly sarcastic, Ike knew he wasn’t all that opposed to the idea; if he was, he would have said so.

-

“I thought you were planning on getting an adult cat who could actually hunt for mice,” Soren said immediately upon seeing the ball of fluff held within the box Ike brought back from the market. The cat had peed on the potatoes inside.

“He was only two copper pieces,” Ike said, and Soren raised an eyebrow, presumably impressed at how cheap the cat was. “The woman had a whole box of kittens. I presume the cat just had an unwanted litter and needed to get rid of the things.”

“Not bad,” Soren said, writing the box of potatoes and the cat down in the accounts book. “So...what are you going to do with it?”

“Well, most of the company are off on jobs right now,” Ike said, “and I’m heading to join them as soon as I’m finished up here. I can’t take the cat to Rhys, they make him sneeze, and I think Shinon might strangle it. So I’m leaving him with you.”

“...I see,” Soren said.

“Is that okay?” he asked. He didn’t see why not. The thing wasn’t exactly big enough to go wandering the keep by himself. He should probably stay indoors for now, or at least stay under supervision. It was just a kitten, it wouldn’t be any bother.

“It’s fine,” Soren replied, eyeing up the cat. It yawned, stretched, and curled up around one of the smaller potatoes. “As long as I don’t have to do anything with it. I have work to do.”

“You always do,” Ike said, leaning in to snatch a kiss. “It’s a shame you can’t come and beat up bandits with us, but whatever you’re doing looks...tedious.” He shot a glance to the heap of papers on Soren’s desk, on top of the melted wax in a pot, still lit with a flame, and three different pots of ink that Ike could count. It looked like Soren had used multiple quills, too.

“I’m writing letters,” Soren said. “Nobility, ambassadors, all sorts. Trying to line up some bigger jobs and projects, but they’re very detail oriented and I’m not sure how to explain to them that we don’t actually have twenty horses to do relay messaging to different groups on the field.”

Ike pulled a face. “I barely even understood half of those words,” he said, though he had understood most of it. “I’ll leave you and the cat to it.”

“I’ll see you later, Ike,” Soren said, a gentle smile on his face.

“I can’t wait,” he returned with a grin, placing the box on the floor, lifting the cat, still clinging onto that potato, out and onto the floor. As he left, he heard Soren tut, but he resisted the temptation to go and see what had happened. He was sure it would be perfectly fine.

-

The cat started, very quickly, to gain a following. Everyone loved the thing, and within a few weeks it had actually caught a mouse or two. Mostly, though, he seemed to be being fed by scraps from the table at mealtimes, which made dinner in particular a constant entertainment.

On the one hand, the cat, who someone clever had decided should be called Greil (even Titania, when Ike had mentioned the name with even the tiniest hint of derision in his voice, had defended the choice of name with the words “he’s a brown tabby, it makes sense”), was everyone’s favourite thing to see during meals, because he’d go and curl up in someone’s lap, hinting that perhaps he’d like some food.

On the other hand, this was incredibly annoying. Because not only did this mean conceding some of your meal to the cat, it also meant that everyone was fawning over the cat in your lap for the whole meal.

Honestly, Ike didn’t mind. Hey, the cat was cute, it improved morale significantly, and there was at least one less pest raiding their food supplies at every opportunity. Within a month of Greil’s first kill, Soren did say that there’d been a noticeable decrease in needing to replace the food stocks.

There was one thing that was slightly annoying, however. The cat was stealing his boyfriend.

Now, it wasn’t that Ike was a jealous person. He didn’t mind it when other people spoke to Soren. He didn’t even mind it when Soren flirted with shopkeepers to get better deals (okay, he minded a bit, but he felt like Soren had to deal with the reverse so often that Ike couldn’t complain too much). But he wasn’t used to Soren giving attention to others very much.

Ike knew that the hallmark of a good relationship was that he shouldn’t be too possessive of Soren. And he tried not to be in the same way that Soren tried not to be too possessive of him. But the cat...Greil loved Soren. Greil’s most frequented lap was Soren’s. Soren spent a lot of time back at the keep, too, which meant that if Greil wasn’t prowling around catching things, he was probably with Soren.

In and of itself, this wasn’t a problem. Just because Soren received attention from an animal didn’t mean he reciprocated it. It was true of people, it was true of the cat. Except he did give attention to Greil. He didn’t like to admit it, because he didn’t like people thinking he was soft even though it was blatantly obvious to Ike that he was, but he liked the cat. He would stroke the cat when it was on his lap, and quite frequently when Soren was reading by candlelight in their shared bedroom, Greil was there as well.

It wasn’t bad, it was just strange. Ike wasn’t used to sharing space with an animal, and he hadn’t expected to share space with an animal once he bought one. Because why would a cat that occasionally got up in the middle of the night and start yowling be sleeping in their bedroom? Why would he have to worry about waking up, opening the door, and seeing a disembowelled mouse or two?

He liked most things about Greil. The cat was soft, and affectionate, and did his job. It was nice to see Soren smile at something else, especially when he’d had misgivings to begin with. He enjoyed having an animal around, and having something that everyone in the company could bond over (have you seen Greil today? I saw Greil doing that earlier, isn’t he cute?), and just generally the cat was pretty great honestly.

He didn’t dislike the cat; he had no real reason to. He was just doing cat things, after all. It just happened to be that those cat things happened in the vicinity of him and Soren. Sometimes this involved a cat trying to play with the end of Ike’s boot when he went to kiss Soren goodbye before going out on a job. One time, it involved a decidedly intimate moment being interrupted by Greil jumping onto the bed. 

Oh, and hearing Soren cooing his father’s name and calling him a beautiful boy was a bit weird as well. But Soren didn’t know he’d heard that one, and it was too adorable and awkward to tell him that he had.

**Author's Note:**

> They're actually called the Greil Mercenaries because they have a cat called Greil who walks all over them.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! Thanks for reading :)


End file.
